By Joyce Uwase
In the United States, the days are winding down to what will likely be a historic election. Despite all that is going on globally, the election’s lingering tension has led many in the States wary about their political system’s fairness. For younger people in the United States, this might feel like the first election in their life that brought to mind worries about the integrity of the voting system. Unfortunately, election corruption is commonplace around the world — especially in places like Rwanda.
But what makes Rwanda different is in the government’s continued efforts to cover up voter suppression. Efforts that are violent, deadly, and funded by taxpayers globally.
Kagame’s Violent History
Rwandan citizens vote, pay taxes, and run their government supposedly much in the same way that the UK or US run their own democrtatic governments. Unfortunately, governmental corruption has seen to it that Rwandans are out of the loop (at best) when it comes to their democratic processes.
Back in 2017, President Paul Kagame won a third presidential election at a massive 99% victory margin. That means, at the end of this most recent time in office, Paul Kagame will have been president for 21 years. Most people see this for what it is — there’s no way 99% of the country voted for a single candidate, significantly when political analysts predicted the results would be otherwise. Frank Habineza ran against President Kagame with an expected 65% win. Instead, he was reported to have reached a mere 1% of the nation’s votes.
Modern Cover-Ups
Other than a blatant cover-up of options, what could have caused this intensive shift in support? Perhaps it was that the Green Party vice president was beheaded in 2010. This was one of the more brutal pre-2017 campaign suppression efforts, but it wasn’t the only one. In 2014, Patrick Karegeya — the former head of the Rwandan intelligence services — was found strangled in a hotel room.
Then, some suffer less physically violent attacks. Presidential hopeful Diane Rwigara qualified as a presidential candidate, but the electoral commission initially rejected her application despite having massive support. Then, she was blackmailed for nearly $6.6 billion from the Rwandan tax agency. Her bank accounts and the bank accounts of her families were shut down, and her family’s businesses were forcefully closed by the military. On top of all this, a falsified smear campaign was created wherein fake nude photographs of Rwigara were spread around the internet and put the nail in her campaign’s coffin.
None of these tactics are new. Kagame has been using them consistently since he took power in 1994. Murders, global kidnappings, media control, and unexplained arrests and jail sentences are par for the course. However, the people of Rwanda and the world, too often tend to look at Kagame for his efforts in stopping the 1994 Genocide rather than looking at the bigger picture.
Why Should I Care If I Don’t Live In Rwanda?
Empathy is probably the most compelling reason why Western readers should care about this. However, there are many very legitimate reasons why Kagame’s continued power grasp should worry people around the world.
First, Kagame’s regime is exploiting the horror of the 1994 Genocide to stay in power. Any time questions about the Kagame regime’s ethics are brought up, Kagame is quick to remind the world that it was under his command that the genocide was quelled. Though not as many over such a short period, thousands of Rwandans have been killed for political reasons since Kagame has been in office — and he’s led millions of people around the world into believing that is the lesser of two evils. He has even been endorsed by beloved semi-liberal leaders, including former US President Bill Clinton and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
He does not target only those activists who live in Rwanda. Taxpayers are trained and sent globally for assassinations of dissidents. In 2014, two activists were put under watch in Great Britain after protesting against the Kagame regime. This year, he even kidnapped and arrested Paul Rusesabagina, the hero of the Hotel Rwanda story and savior of thousands of genocide survivors. Rusesabagina had not lived in Rwanda for many years out of fear of the Kagame regime. He lives in Texas, USA, and in Brussels, Belgium, but was intercepted on a trip to Dubai.
The biggest reason why Western countries should care? The tensions within the country were created by European colonizers, not by the country itself. It is a direct byproduct of the colonial occupation by Belgium. Before the occupation of the country by Belgium, the Tutsis and the Hutus lived harmoniously, and the only thing that separated them from one another was their choice of occupation — the Tutsis being cattle owners and the Hutus being farmers. As with all agricultural trades worldwide, there are both rich and poor cattle owners and farmers alike. However, with Belgian occupation, the Belgian occupying forces planted the (false) seed of Tutsi superiority. This bubbled unchecked for years until the 1994 genocide — when it finally boiled over, and hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives.
During this election cycle in the United States, Rwanda’s history is a stunning reminder of how far the power of voter suppression can go — and how systemic that suppression can be. US voters should keep foreign policy in mind when heading to the polls and voting for democracy at all levels, both globally and domestically.
